Philately: What's New

Georg Danzer - Well, look at that! (Jö, schau!)

He was one of Austria’s best songwriters and is consequently a worthy choice to be the first featured in the new “Austropop” series with its embossed embellishment: Georg Danzer would have turned 80 this year.

Georg Danzer was born in 1946 in Vienna. After completing school, his application to study at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts was unsuccessful, so he started writing songs, including ones for Wolfgang Ambros and Marianne Mendt. He released his first single in 1968, followed in 1972 by the cult hit “Tschik” in the Viennese dialect, which increasingly gained in popularity in the up-and-coming Austrian pop scene.

His real breakthrough came in 1975 with the song “Jö schau”, in which he sang about a streaker in the Café Hawelka, followed by humorous songs like “Hupf in Gatsch” and also more profound ones like “Lass mi amoi no d’Sunn aufgeh’ segn”. He also increasingly gained acclaim as a poet and serious composer, with numerous tours and more than thirty albums following. In 1997 he performed for the first time with Wolfgang Ambros and Rainhard Fendrich as “Austria 3”, a group that was originally formed solely for a fund-raising concert. On top of his concerts and albums with other artists and his solo projects, Danzer also worked as an actor, wrote books, translated novels from Spanish into German and championed various social causes. He died of cancer in 2007.

Georg Danzer is still considered one of the pioneers of Austrian music history. Numerous concerts with star guests are being held to celebrate his 80th birthday, with a portion of the proceeds, as is traditional, going to St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute. 

Series NEW: Austropop
Graphic design: David Gruber
Value: 3.10 euros
Pre-issue day: 05.06.2026
First day of issue: 27.06.2026
First day: 3270 Scheibbs
Stamp size: 70.00 x 80.00 mm
Small sheet size: 36.82 x 42.00 mm
Perforation measurement: 13½ x 13¼
Printing technique: Offset printing with embossing
Quantity: 150,000 commemorative mini sheets of 1 unit each
Order no: 226330

30 years of the Rainbow Parade - Diversity in all its colours

The new “Diversity” series kicks off with the Pride or Rainbow Parade. This year will be the 30th time that people have joined it to demonstrate in the name of acceptance, respect and equal rights.

The first Rainbow Parade in Austria took place in 1996 with the aim of drawing the public’s attention to the political demands of the LGBTIQ community. Around 25,000 participants and curious onlookers took part back then, but for this year’s 30th anniversary parade on 13th June, numbers in the hundreds of thousands are expected. Since 1997 the parade has gone “the other way” round the Ring Road: in the opposite direction to the traffic.

The Rainbow Parade along Vienna’s Ring Road is the high point of Vienna Pride, the biggest LGBTIQ event in Austria. Other related events include the Pride Conference, Community Day, the Pride Run and many more cultural and social events. The Rainbow Parade is a political demonstration that aims to increase the visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer people and make people aware of their particular concerns. To celebrate the anniversary, Austrian Post is taking a stand for absolute acceptance and equality by issuing a commemorative stamp. The design was selected in a competition and shows the colours and shapes used as symbols for the LGBTIQ community and to represent people of various sexual orientations and people of colour. With its vibrant colours, the rainbow, a symbol of the gay and lesbian movement since the 1970s, stands for pride, diversity and visibility. 

Series: Diversity
Graphic design: Bianca Förster
Value: 1.25 euros
Pre-issue day: 05.06.2026
First day of issue: 11.06.2026
First day: 1050 Vienna
Stamp size: 29.34 x 44.00 mm
Perforation measurement: 13¾ x 13¾
Printing technique: Offset printing
Quantity: 180,000 stamps on sheets of 50
Order no: 226320

100th anniversary of the birth of Peter Alexander - Peter the Great

He was one of the most popular and multi-talented entertainers of his time, and is still thought of with affection to this day. Peter Alexander would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year.

Born Peter Alexander Ferdinand Maximilian Neumayer in 1926 in Vienna, Peter Alexander started studying medicine after the end of the war but quickly broke off his medical studies to study acting at the Max Reinhardt Seminar instead. After successfully completing the course in 1948, he worked in various theatres. In 1951, he recorded his first record, launching his successful career as an Austrian pop singer. He also appeared in numerous light-entertainment films, enabling him to showcase both his comedic talent and his abilities as a singer. 

The film versions of the operettas “Im Weißen Rössl“, “Die Fledermaus” and “Die lustige Witwe” and classics such as “Charleys Tante” are particularly well known, for example, as are the Count Bobby films. His films frequently co-starred Gunther Philipp and Theo Lingen. He also gained popularity through his television appearances: from 1963 until his retirement in 1996, the Peter Alexander Show always attracted a large audience, and his concert tours throughout Austria, Germany and Switzerland were equally successful. Peter Alexander passed away in Vienna in 2011.

With his incomparable Viennese charm and humour, his friendly and down-to-earth manner and his professional attitude, the versatile entertainer, musician, actor, comedian, impersonator and pianist quickly acquired a large following. He was someone who gave people a glimpse of an ideal world and, quite simply, entertained them – and he did so over the course of many decades.

Graphic design: Theresa Radlingmaier
Value: 3.10 euros
Pre-issue day: 05.06.2026
First day of issue: 30.06.2026
First day: 1030 Vienna
Stamp size: 32.59 x 40.00 mm
Perforation measurement: 13½ x 13½
Printing technique: Offset printing
Quantity: 190,000 stamps on sheets of 50
Order no: 226340

Saint Dominic - 800 years of the Dominicans in Vienna

To celebrate ”800 years of the Vienna Dominican Convent”, this year’s stamp in the “Religious art in Austria” series shows an initial letter from a valuable medieval manuscript.

The Dominican order was founded in 1216 by St Dominic as an order of preachers to proclaim the Catholic faith. The order quickly spread throughout the whole of Europe. In 1226, Duke Leopold VI of Austria and Styria summoned the Dominican order to Vienna and founded a monastery in the Postgasse, where the convent still stands today. The first monastery church was consecrated in 1237, followed by today’s Baroque church in 1634, which was improved over the following decades and subsequently elevated to the status of Basilica minor in 1927.

The Dominican monastery in Vienna is one of the order’s educational establishments: the friars are dedicated to spreading the faith, to pastoral care, to theological and philosophical research and teaching and to adult education and spiritual guidance.

The stamp to celebrate this special anniversary is decorated with an initial from the so-called Heuner-Missale, Cod. 415/212. This missal in two volumes dating from 1476/1477 was donated to the monastery by the Viennese citizen Stephan Heuner. It is housed in the monastery’s manuscript library and is enhanced by elaborately designed and executed initials, floral decorations and ornamentation. The design on the stamp shows the order’s founder, St Dominic, while in the background what are probably the medieval Gothic Viennese Dominican Church and the city wall can be seen.

Series: Religious art in Austria
Graphic design: Kirsten Lubach
Value: 1.55 euros
Pre-issue day: 05.06.2026
First day of issue: 14.06.2026
First day: 1010 Vienna
Stamp size: 35.00 x 35.00 mm
Perforation measurement: 13¾ x 13¾
Printing technique: Offset printing
Quantity: 160,000 stamps on sheets of 50
Order no: 226240

Friederike Mayröcker - A literary grande dame

After honouring her partner Ernst Jandl last year, this year Austrian Post is celebrating the Viennese poet and author Friederike Mayröcker in its “Literature from Austria” series.

Born in Vienna in 1924, Mayröcker already began writing poetry during her adolescence. She worked as an English teacher from 1946 until 1969. During the 1950s, she came into contact with avant-garde artists such as Andreas Okopenko and with writers from the “Vienna Group”, and in 1954, she met Ernst Jandl, with whom she enjoyed a close friendship and literary partnership until his passing in 2000. Mayröcker passed away in Vienna in 2021 and was buried in Ernst Jandl’s grave.

Friederike Mayröcker is considered an outstanding linguistic virtuoso. She wrote tirelessly, creating an output of over 120 works, primarily poetry, prose, radio plays, plays and children’s books. Her works full of “lyrical intensity” stand completely on their own; experimental and influenced by surrealism, they were written in her “cave of papers”, bursting with notes, drawings and books. Mayröcker received numerous awards, including the radio play prize of the war blind in 1969 for the radio play “Fünf Mann Menschen” (Five Man Humanity) that she wrote together with Ernst Jandl, and in 2016 becoming the first recipient of the Austrian Book Prize with her volume “fleurs”. Her comprehensive estate is held by the Literary Archive of the Austrian National Library. The quote “No life, no love without literature” reflects the closely interwoven relationship between her writing and her life.

Series: Literature from Austria
Graphic design: Roland Vorlaufer
Value: 1.00 euros
Pre-issue day: 05.06.2026
First day of issue: 10.06.2026
First day: 1060 Vienna
Stamp size: 42.00 x 29.47 mm
Small sheet size: 124.00 x 187.40 mm
Perforation measurement: 13¼ x 13½
Printing technique: Offset printing
Quantity: 260,000 on small sheets of 10 units each
Order no: 226230
Small sheet order no: 226760

100 years of the Rax cable car - Ascending the heights

The Rax cable car has been carrying passengers up to the Rax plateau since 1926. Austrian Post is congratulating it on its 100th anniversary with a unique stamp block.

The Rax, like the Schneeberg, is one of Vienna’s local landmark mountains, providing an important recreational area close to the city, as well as being a landscape and water conservation area. By 1900, the Rax mountain was already a popular destination for a day out, but at that time it could only be explored on foot. It was only after the First World War that the idea of providing mechanical assistance for ascending the mountain could be put into practice, and after around two years of planning and building work, the cable car with two cabins was opened on 9th June 1926.

Even today, the Rax cable car, the first aerial cableway for passenger transport in Austria, is considered a technical masterpiece and a symbol of progress. The journey from Hirschwang an der Rax to the mountain station on the Rax at an elevation of around 1,550 metres is an ideal way to access the high Alpine mountain landscape with its many hiking trails, snowshoe tour routes, climbing tours, restaurants and manned mountain huts where you can also spend the night.

Driven by electricity, over the course of its 2,160 metre-long route, the Rax cable car ascends around 1,000 metres in approximately eight minutes, and, except when closed for maintenance, is open all year round. Both propulsion motors are located at the mountain station. There is room for 30 people in each cabin, and the cable car transports around 200,000 passengers up the mountain every year. The centenary stamp block comes in the shape of a modern Caban that opens out, with the removable stamp on the inside featuring a historic photo of the cable car.

Graphic design: Marion Füllerer
Value: 3.50 euros
Pre-issue day: 12.06.2026
First day of issue: 12.06.2026
First day: 2651 Reichenau an der Rax
Stamp size: 25.00 x 25.00 mm
Sheet size: 65.00 x 45.00 mm
Perforation measurement: 13½ x 13½
Printing technique: Offset printing
Quantity: 100,000 commemorative mini sheets of 1 unit each
Order no: 226350